Table 4. — Percentage age at length of Atlantic mackerel aged from samples collected during the 

 1978 spring sportfishing season along the Middle Atlantic coast. 



Age (years) 



Table 5. — Numbers, percentage age composition, mean length at age of recreationally caught Atlantic mackerel, 

 and estimated recreational catch in metric tons from New York through Virginia during 1978. 



Age (years) 



large 1967 and 1969 year classes (Anderson 

 1979) which were 11 and 9 yr old in 1978 still 

 contributed nearly 50% of the recreational 

 catch. The percentage age composition of the 

 total stock in 1978 was estimated to be 23.1, 17.0, 

 22.7, 25.2, 7.0, 1.4, 1.2, 0.8, 0.8, 0.5, 0.4, and 0.1 for 

 ages 1 through 11 and >11 (Anderson 1979). 

 Comparisons of the two age composition esti- 

 mates indicates all age-groups older than 5 

 compose 5.1% of the stock and 84.1% of the 

 recreational catch. The mean fork length of age- 

 class 3 through 5 fish was only 2.2 cm less than 

 the mean fork length of all fish measured during 

 the recreational survey. Therefore, it does not 

 seem probable that the hook-and-line fishery is 

 size selective between age-classes >2 yr old. The 

 stock assessment (Anderson 1979) was based 



partially on NMFS research vess-el trawl sur- 

 veys which did not include sampling inside the 

 27.4 m (15 fathom) contour. As most recre- 

 ational fishing is done inshore of the 27.4 m 

 contour, it is possible that older Atlantic mack- 

 erel concentrate inshore. This would result in a 

 delay in recruitment into the recreational fish- 

 ery until age 6 or greater. 



Acknowledgments 



We wish to express our appreciation to the 

 following personnel who assisted in the collection 

 of field data: Pernell Lewis, Robert Matus, Wil- 

 liam Rogers, Russell Terranova, and Paul Yus- 

 chak, NMFS; Ronal W Smith, Delaware Division 

 of Fish and Wildlife; Paul G. Scarlett, Barry Preim, 



804 



